"As the beautiful burial service was being read over poor Jack Wright, and his body dropped into the sea, many a tear fell that those who shed them needn't have taken much pains to hide.
"At Plymouth we were in quarantine for some time, and no one was allowed on board, but there were boats enough with friends and relations in them hanging around. In one of them was a beautiful young woman and an elderly dame, probably her mother. The whisper--it was nothing else--soon passed round: 'Yonder is poor Jack's wife.'
"Long before she came on board she was in tears; her sailor lad was not even at a port to wave a handkerchief. 'He must be ill,' she would have thought.
"'The doctor wishes to speak to you in his cabin,' a midshipman said, when she appeared on deck.
She came tottering in, supported by the old dame.
"'Jack's ill!' she cried.
"The doctor did not reply.
"'Jack is dead!' she moaned. 'My Jack!'
"We did not answer. How could we?
"Heigho! I've seen grief many times since, but I never witnessed anything to equal that of poor Jack Wright's young wife.